ESPN Spring Training coverage

ESPN announced on Wednesday that they will be broadcasting eight Grapefruit League games during Spring Training.

It’s expected that all eight will be available on ESPN America and most, if not all, will be available for International MLB.TV subscribers online.

All games will begin at 17.00 U.K. time:

Monday 11. St. Louis Cardinals at New York Yankees
Monday 18. Philadelphia Phillies at Atlanta Braves
Tuesday 19. New York Yankees at Philadelphia Phillies
Wednesday 20. Boston Red Sox at New York Yankees
Monday 25. Boston Red Sox at Baltimore Orioles
Tuesday 26. St. Louis Cardinals at New York Mets
Wednesday 27. Philadelphia Phillies at Detroit Tigers
Thursday 28. New York Mets at Washington Nationals.

ESPN is generally seen as being biased towards east coast teams and their Spring Training schedule will add some grist to that particular mill for those bothered by it.

The concentration of games towards the end of Spring Training reflects both that this is always the period when MLB regulars play the majority of the innings (as opposed to earlier in Spring Training when they’ll clear off after 4 or 5) and that the World Baseball Classic will steal the spotlight during the first half of March this year.

About Matt Smith

Matt Smith is the editor and lead writer at BaseballGB. An Oakland A's fan, Matt has been following baseball since 1998 and started writing about the sport in 2006. He is the current Chair of the British Baseball Hall of Fame.

6 Responses to ESPN Spring Training coverage

Hi Peter. No definite news as yet. In U.S. ESPN will not have the rights this time (previously they shared with MLB Network) but that shouldn’t affect the international rights. MP & Silva are the company responsible for distributing the media rights and their stated goal is to use it as a baseball showcase and get it in front of as many people as possible. Unless a free-to-air channel picked up the rights (ITV4 possibly being the only possible option that comes to mind and that not being very likely at all) I would suspect they’ll come to an agreement with ESPN America.

I really agree about the East Coast bias which I guess is due to the time difference in the regular season. However it is a shame when the best teams are on the West Coast. Fortunately I will be watching a few games at Tropicana stadium to support the Rays, but my favourite team is the Mariners but sadly don’t get to see them much these days and of clourse they let me down year after year !! 🙂
Geoff , Surrey UK